Posted by Sam Chapple on Mon, Aug 30, 2010
In this third and final installment of our series on eCommerce, we learn of the power of hosted services. You already mastered the basics of launching an ecommerce B2B operation in “The Promise of the Shopping Cart” and the price you should can expect to pay in “The Key to an Overflowing Chest.” Now, like the mythic pirate Bretheren Court, you will have to choose your captain to host your financial endeavor.
I know you want me to just tell you the best shopping cart to pick, but there is no one universal “best” shopping cart. Like the pirate lords, each business has different needs. Let your end-goals be your compass and you’ll soon discover your ideal destination. I will give you this piece of hard-won advice: seek results-based B2B marketing, not technology-driven marketing. In other words, choose based on what will enrich your chest the most, not what looks like the coolest cutlass in the armory.
Shopping Cart & Web Site Costs
Hosted eCommerce web site services like Yahoo Merchant Services, Shopify, Volusion, and Big Commerce all deserve a closer look. The upside: They offer an ‘SaaS’, or Software as a Service, which means you don’t have to worry about maintaining the shopping cart software, including security updates and upgrades. This can give you peace-of-mind in a stormy transaction environment because you don’t have to worry about the technical issues. Plus, you have a support network available to help you 24/7. The downside: You don’t get the full control of a self-serve hosted server account.
Beware hidden fees. They can add up and hurt your business. Actually, “hidden” is not an accurate term because the costs are shown on your contract, but it’s up to you, the captain, to choose and stay on top of store charges. You will pay a premium for premium service. In addition to a monthly service charge, you could be charged as much as 2% more per-transaction. That is no small coin.
Self-serve hosted server account: A custom site, while it may include “free” shopping carts, can require a great deal of skill to configure, upgrade and maintain. That means that the developer brought on board to design the site becomes trapped in an endless loop of maintenance, upgrades and fixes. For the captain, this can result in a financial leak due to hidden costs and endless problems, especially if you try to build the site quickly “on the cheap.”
On the Upside: Self-serve hosted server accounts provide an enormous amount of flexibility. A well-researched business plan and eCommerce strategy is a prerequisite to succeeding.
Brand prominence plays a pivotal role in the eCommerce battle for market domination. Ultimately, you want the message to be about you and not another business entity like Google or PayPal. It’s easy to fall into the “free” trap, but remember you’re selling a brand at that point (witnessed by the fact of low penetration of alternative payment methods). In fact you’re already selling a brand: your business. If you want to simply accept credit cards, would you rather accept credit cards, or, accept credit cards through PayPal?
It sounds (and is) so much ”easier” on the client side to simply accept credit cards and not require signing up for various other brands who then market to your clients without even paying the courtesy of a finder’s fee for your trouble.
As a general rule, a smart sailor protects the brand and develops a strategy outside of PayPal and Google Checkout. It may cost more in the short-run, but it puts you in control of your clients and client lists by going with a gateway and merchant account. This gives a company a virtual payment terminal right out of the box and puts you on course for a successful shopping cart web site application.
Are you launching your B2B company on the ecommerce seas? Want some guidance from seasoned veterans? Drop us a line with your burning questions before you weigh anchor.
Posted by JT Long on Fri, Aug 27, 2010
JT: Is Internet marketing really necessary?
Red: A better question is: "Are you visible to decision-makers?"
A recent survey of 4,000 B2B buyers by MarketingSherpa showed that 80 percent went and found their marketing company. This demonstrates a shift in power. Your prospects are out hunting for vendors and you have to be present where they are looking. A smart Internet campaign can help you magnify your attractiveness.
Four tactics can raise your visibility and build demand for the long-term.
1. Search Engine Marketing: Focusing on keywords, keeping your site current and connected.
2. PR 2.0: Publishing articles and commenting and guest-blogging in all the right places.
3. Tailored Communications: Helping people make good decisions.
4. Ongoing Monitoring: Keeping tabs on how you are perceived in the digital world.
All of these strategies involve the Internet at their core.
Take Away: If you hear from an agency that Internet marketing is not important, that should be a dealbreaker.
Your Turn: How do you get found online? Share your best practices.
Posted by JT Long on Mon, Aug 16, 2010
A backstage Q & A tour of what makes a top 10 hit business web site, from rock star web designer Chris Lee
The difference between a B2B web site that rocks search engines and visitors alike and one that resembles a tune played on a long, slow elevator ride is often the execution. Like a hit song that is covered by bands all over the dial, the impact depends on hitting just the right notes where it counts.
Q: A home page sets the tone for a web site. What needs to be front and center and what should be left out?
A: Clearly and concisely state what your company does and how your company can benefit users. Visitors should be able to scan it quickly, so it needs to be clean and concise. My favorite example right now is Campaign Monitor's site.
It is easy on the eyes, plays up the benefits - "a tidy profit" - with a clear call to action. Below the fold are links to Twitter testimonials and the blog that establishes expert status.
Q: What makes a rocking About Page? How can a business make their liner notes sing?
A: A company's About or Team Page should include information about the actual people working there. This is where you can add your personal touch: pictures, bios, interesting facts, anything that differentiates you and your band of employees as experts in the field.
Q: What behind the scenes tags and coding are important to attract search engine fame and fortune?
A: Websites need to be compatible with all commonly used browsers (including mobile devices). A qualified web designer knows how to satisfy all these channels. Numbers count, so find a designer who can also ensure that analytical tracking code is included. You can have the prettiest site on the web, but if you can't monitor who is visiting, what they are looking at and where they are going, you can't convert and improve.
Q: How do you structure a site so that it naturally flows toward conversion?
A: Less is more. Short, enticing content focused on benefits of offer/product rather than features keeps them clicking. Include an easy call-to-action for maximum bottom-line impact. Make sure the shopping cart is secure. Fans won't sing your praises if the transaction doesn't work.
Q: What are the best ways to encourage high-volume social media connections?
A: Give them a reason to follow you on Twitter and like your Facebook pages: special give-aways, regular updates, insider info. Then make the RSS feed and social media buttons prominent.
Q: What are the classic mistakes business web pages make? What should web designers not do?
A: The biggest "don't" I see is trying to pack as much stuff on one page as digitally possible - clutter is bad. It hurts the eyes, the brain and kills the amount of time people spend on your site.
Clean is good. Businesses should also not try to mislead users. Be clear about what you do and what you offer. Finally, there should be no broken links, pages or images. Nothing turns visitors away like an error message.
What are your tips for a B2B web site that hits all the right notes? Add your voice in the comments below.
Posted by JT Long on Thu, Aug 12, 2010
JT: What is the difference between B2B and B2C or consumer marketing? It's all selling to people, right?
Red: Yes and no, In business-to-business marketing, you're dealing with multiple individuals - often "buying committees" - during a decision-making process. Each person has a role in the process and a responsibility to judiciously compare all the options. This enhanced scrutiny compared to a typical consumer purchase is due to the fact that a decision about a professional service or produce can have enormous impacts on a company's productivity, operations, legal standing, reputation, sales, and - ultimately - the bottom line. The risk of a wrong decision is high.
Usually companies conduct extensive research on possible partners so being at the top of search results with the right message is important. Web site keywords need to be refined and benefit-focused.
Because buying committees expect a powerfully-built business case, smart B2B marketers focus on building a relationship through credibility and trust while offering multiple opportunities to engage. After all, in the end, they are buying the supplier along wit the product or service so give them value with every interaction.
For all these reasons, B2B companies need to make sure they are dealing with marketing experts who understand the challenges they face and have the skills to get them noticed with the right audience.
Take Away
So, if an agency tells you "there is nothing special about marketing to savvy business decision makers," that could be a Dealbreaker.
Your Turn
How do you market differently to B2B than B2C? Share your best practices here.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Wed, Aug 11, 2010
Nobody likes long goodbyes. And a fancy email signature can cause more headaches than it's worth.Do you know someone who's overloaded their email signature? What's packed into yours? Let’s go through a quick checklist. Count how many of these elements your signature has:
- Several styles and sizes of type
- Special line spacing
- Different formatting (like bold, italics, regular text)
- A company logo
- A picture of you
- Little icons (like tiny phone symbol)
- Special characters (like TM or SM in superscript)
- A call to action or sales message
- A disclaimer
- Links to social media accounts
- A catchy quote or motto
None of those things is so terrible by itself. Heck we've all got some of this stuff. But when you pile them one on top of another, the result can be jarring.
Understated elegance
A client of ours has agreed to be an example in this article. Meet Van Haas, who leads the best cost management company in Sacramento. He likes e-mail signatures with bells and whistles - and this is how his signature looked in the early days of our collaboraton -->
The message and contact info are hiding somewhere in there. But here was my plea to Van:
Imagine you bump into the CEO of a $200M company you want as a client. You follow up with a quick email note. She looks at it on her Palm and forwards it to the VP/Operations. He gets it at his work address but he's telecommuting using his Mac. With corporate firewalls and ISPs and email platforms all processing the info, the stuff that looked cool at the sender's end gets scrambled and whacky and squinty, if not lost. And the VP/Operations parks the email for later, when he has a minute to ask the CEO who the sender was. Great opportunity evaporates.
Van wrote back:
“Ok ok ok. I get it. But, I like fanciness. :-)” And proposed this:
Better!
But we're still in the land of fancy formatting. The simpler and cleaner, the better.
Even Microsoft is realizing this. In June the company announced that it would stop adding lines of promotional text at the end of Hotmail users’ messages. As reported by Todd Bishop of Techflash, Microsoft had been getting a lot of complaints about the taglines creating clutter. So even though the taglines promoting Hotmail generated about 2 million clicks per month, Microsoft realized that the clicks weren’t worth the animosity.
Here's the sparkling clean version Van has today - yeay.
What's in your email signature and why?
Posted by Sam Chapple on Sat, Aug 07, 2010
So you’re ready to set sail with your eCommerce adventure, but what is the best vessel for your journey? The Black Pearl or the Flying Dutchman? A shopping cart or alternative payment options? A combination of the above? Choose recklessly and fees could hornswaggle you out of your profits. The right decision could be the key to an overflowing chest.
I can already hear the calls of ”Argh! Just tell us the services to buy and spare us the details matey.” As in all business endeavors, the devil is in the details (the ”devil,” by the way, was a long seam in old wooden sailing ships that was very difficult to seal. Ignore the devil in eCommerce and you’ll face the same consequences of sinking your project.)
In the first of this three-part series, we introduced some eCommerce concepts and requirements, but steadfastly refused to name the ”best” shopping cart. The reason is simple: There is no one ”best” shopping cart. The details in your business requirements define what tools you will need to succeed. Use your end goal and the results you expect as your compass, guiding you to the right solution. Seek results-based on best-practice B2B marketing, not technology-driven marketing.
Today we’ll look at some of the fees associated with two ways of conducting eCommerce. We will go over still more fees in the third and final part of the series.
Fees, Scurvy Fees
Nothing is free in the eCommerce seas. Carefully assess bank fee structures associated with your online transactions before bringing your account onboard. Take a hard look at all gateway charges and merchant account processing. Following are some of the fees you can expect:
An Internet Merchant account can run around $10 a month, with a per-transaction fee of 25 cents, an additional charge of the credit card company of between 2% and 3.5% (known as a qualified discount rate), with additional non-qualified surcharges running from 0.5% to 1.5%.
Avast, you should also be aware that cards can be ”charged back” if the card holder disputes the charges. This typically incurs a $20 charge per-transaction fee. This is on top of the funds you lose in a charge-back dispute. To protect yourself from the curse of the chargeback, consider a fraud protection plan , particularly if you are selling products that can be resold on the “gray market.”
For Gateway fees you can expect to pay around $18 a month and some kind of per-transaction fee, typically around 10 cents a transaction. This cost is stacked on top of the merchant account cost, which gives a running total of $28 a month and 35 cents per transaction, plus the discount rate of the credit card company. It’s possible to negotiate lower rates if you shop around and keep your merchant account processor aware of your needs.
Alternative payment programs
PayPal, Google Checkout and a few other alternative payment services typically offer "free" payment services for buyers and a fee-based system for sellers or service providers. Alternative payment methods represent a small portion of overall eCommerce sales, so it’s critical to understand the markets they can be leveraged in. They are called “alternative” because the primary payment method is by credit card: Discover, Visa, MasterCard and American Express.
Google Checkout:
- For sales of less than $3,000 a month: 2.9% plus 30 cents per-transaction
- For sales above $100,000: 1.9% plus 30 cents per-transaction
- An additional 1% for International payments
Google Checkout provides a secure method of purchasing products and services within the Google network. You would need a verified Google account with a verified bank account, and your client would need to have a Google Checkout account with a verified credit card for purchases. Google Checkout will deposit payments in your specified verified account. Google Checkout does not provide any out-of-network services at this time. It does provide fraud protection to the merchant, hence verification of accounts requirement. The association with the Google brand can be a positive and a negative. Google’s big brother image and recent privacy issues can bias some of your customers, although the adaptation of Google Apps has not stopped all businesses. Another challenge is that Google funds management is difficult to reconcile as its API is very limited. On an ecommerce site with a large amount of daily orders, it is not practical.
PayPal:
- For sales of less than $3,000 a month: 2.9% plus 30 cents per-transaction
- For sales above $100,000: 1.9% plus 30 cents per-transaction
- Generally an additional 1% for International payments
PayPal offers a secure payment network and out-of-network credit card payments (by non-PayPal account holders). The one catch to the out-of-network payments is a lifetime limit on an unverified guest, which also carries over to PayPal. You have to verify your account (that is, give PayPal your business account number and let them deposit a small sum of money into it which you then verify). PayPal offers chargeback protection and fraud protection. PayPal payments must be transferred to a bank account to access the funds outside of the PayPal network.
The downside: PayPal carries the stigma of eBay. The upside: PayPal enjoys a big chunk of the alternative payment market (roughly 20% by industry standards of all payment methods). It also boasts a well-developed API and a large number of third-party integrations with shopping carts. While not widely accepted by consumers it does remain an attractive alternative payment method for B2B. PayPal offers a service on the high end, a "virtual terminal" that allows a business to charge a credit card directly.
PayPal Virtual Terminal runs around $30 a month with a 2.4% to 3.1% credit card transaction cost plus a 30 cent per-transaction fee.
You can see how choosing the right crew can make or break your fortunes in the high-stakes world of B2B ecommerce. For those who brave the elements, the reward can be great.
This is the second article in a three part series on B2B eCommerce. The final installment will help you set a course for a smooth ecommerce launch. Please share your experiences setting up a B2B ecommerce site and ask your burning questions about how to protect your booty from the curse of too many fees in the comments section below.
Posted by JT Long on Fri, Jul 30, 2010
How do you know if your prospective B2B Marketing Partner is a good fit for your organization?
In this special audio blog, we share a tip-off that you may not be working with the right company.
Audio Dealbreaker of the Day
Red: What if you went to see an optometrist you hadn’t met before, and, before testing your vision, he said, “surgery can help you.” Wouldn’t that be weird? The equivalent happens in marketing all the time. Just Google “marketing consultant,” call the first 10 companies listed, and ask them what you need. The good ones will insist on building a foundation before diving into tactics. They’ll link marketing goals with business goals, and ensure that the marketing planning is grounded in real client and prospect perceptions. In short, the initial focus should be on methodically preparing your firm to attract and quickly capitalize on a moment’s attention from a prospect. A focus on a particular tactic right out of the gate can make you wonder: Does this marketing consultant see all the options? How can they confidently recommend this over the others at this point?
Take away
If you wouldn’t trust an optometrist who gives you advice before checking your eyes, don’t trust a marketer who pushes a tactic before checking your marketing.
Your turn
Did we get it right? Leave anything out? Chime in below.
Posted by Sam Chapple on Thu, Jul 08, 2010
Like the crafty Pirates of the Caribbean, B2B sellers lured by tales of gold on the high seas of the Internet need to be aware of the dangers lurking in ecommerce waters.
Just as Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner have different goals and fighting styles, each business has different needs. For example, typically B2B companies have comparatively few products posted online compared to thousands featured on a consumer site. That leads to different considerations when choosing the appropriate vehicle for sailing off into the profitable sunset.
So before you hoist your flag and open for business, let’s take a moment to understand the moving parts in a working ecommerce platform.
Payment Gateway: This virtual port is where an order is actually charged to a customer for a transaction. It is not part of the shopping cart! Payment gateways provide a high security Internet portal for each merchant for manual order transactions and account reporting. The gateway also offers an application programming interface, or ‘API’, for sending and receiving encrypted order transaction information.
This is the source of eCommerce, the passing of dubloons from one account to another electronically. A payment gateway does not need a shopping cart, but a shopping cart needs a payment gateway. The merchant pays a monthly gateway fee and a percentage on each transaction.
Merchant Account: A B2B seller needs a merchant account to accept credit card transactions from the gateway. A merchant account is generally an added option to an existing business account at the business’s local bank. The merchant pays a monthly fee and a percentage on each transaction. Many factors come into play when a bank calculates a merchant's various fees, so it’s important to keep a working relationship with your banker. Missing data like exact address match, as well as off-page factors like your business credit, can influence your rates. Take the time to shop around for rates. The points can add up faster than skeletons in a Disney battle scene.
Alternative Payment Methods: Be sure to examine both sides of every payment method. PayPal accepts credit cards from out-of-network clients; however they have a lifetime limit ($2,500) before clients are required to sign up. PayPal can hold funds from out-of-network (large amounts) or unverified sales. This is part of fraud protection and can take some time to clear. A merchant account, on the other hand, goes right into your bank account. You own it, not PayPal.
Shopping Cart: In its most basic form, a shopping cart is a specialized web application that allows a customer to add products, calculate prices, estimate taxes, and estimate shipping. The application will then bill (not charge) the customer, produce a nice receipt page and send an email confirmation.
Shopping cart websites are essentially the check-out part of a brick and mortar supermarket and a virtual product catalog rolled up into one. The idea is to make it work like a real shopping cart... where you walk around choosing stuff and putting it in your basket. When you're ready to pay, you go to the checkout and it's all added up. You pay by credit card or debit card, and your payment is verified electronically. On the merchant’s side all the payment transactions and approval codes are batched for payment at the end of the day via the gateway. Sales are compared to gateway transactions to reconcile the accounts.
Fraud protection: The online merchant is at a disadvantage with fraud, having both cyber gangs and the credit card companies against them. Specialized services provide card-not-present fraud protection for merchants at an additional cost.
The Whole Enchilada
A gateway combined with a shopping cart application provides the greatest flexibility in selling products by giving payment transaction and merchandising tools to the B2B company. With that flexibility comes additional learning and time requirements.
When evaluating services, don’t forget the cost of your time in managing a store and the daily clerk duties it entails. The simpler the flow, the easier it will be to utilize the resource.
Separate “must haves” and “nice to haves” based on your long-term business priorities. That’s where developing a written business plan around an online service or product line is so important. Mastering the mechanics of digital distribution and payment is far more important than trying to build the best B2B website at first. Small steps get you there quicker.
There is no one size fits all in B2B online sales. That's why it is important to get the right kind of help with B2B eCommerce.
I just want to take payments
Many times in the services industries there is no one set price for a product, or clients pay for time or by subscription. This can be difficult to handle with a standard shopping cart. That is where experienced sailors of the ecommerce seas can help keep you from getting seasick.
This is the first article in a three part series on B2B eCommerce. The next installment examines the pros and cons of different ecommerce solutions and how you can minimize the price of doing business online. Please share your experiences and ask your burning questions about how to protect your booty from the curse of too many fees.
This article is by Sam Chapple, captain of Ecommerce and Internet Marketing at B2B Communications.
Posted by JT Long on Tue, Jun 29, 2010
|
Myth #1: Keywords = Jail
Myth #2: Software can Write Great SEO Content
Myth #3: All Traffic is Equal
|
Get ready for the B2B marketing version of Myth Busters. In this episode, we dispel the rumor that SEO stands for Stupid, Erratic and Odd
B2B search engine optimization doesn’t mean that you go out of your way to pack headlines and paragraphs with keywords at the expense of clarity, impact or grammar.
In fact, the opposite is true. The more you write to meet your reader’s needs, the more naturally you will attract the search engine attention that will bring you the most qualified leads.
Myth #1: Keywords = Jail
Busted: Well-defined keywords are not handcuffs that tether you to a constrained list of approved phrases. Instead, they are guides to keep you on track. Multiple entries with similar tags show search engines that you have lots of content on a certain subject. It also shows visitors that you have depth of knowledge that could be the answer to their needs. True SEO is a win-win for you and the reader.
Myth #2: SEO Content can be Written by a Computer
Busted: SEO copywriting is an art as much as it is a science. That is why anyone who says they have a computer program that can churn out content based on keywords is missing the mark. Only real people - creative copywriting experts - can bring that creative spark to a subject to explain it in a new way. Only a strategic marketer armed with sound competitive analysis and monster business writing skills will be able to deliver content that meets complex online content and conversion optimization rules.
Myth #3: All Traffic is Equal
Busted: Being found is a long way from being successful. Success means attracting qualified inbound leads. The latter is an order of magnitude harder than the former. It requires a true understanding of your customer’s needs. Only then can you provide the information they need in the format they need it.
How can you tell if you are posting the right content? Ask yourself:
- Does this content help our prospects?
- Does this content help search engines?
The best SEO content does both. So you don’t have to choose between educational, compelling copy and lists of words that will attract Google bots. That is just a myth. The truth is that a well-rounded SEO pro will consistently do both, naturally.
JT Long is Content Marketing Manager for Business Communications Group, a veteran storyteller for local and national publications and a longtime blogger. You can tweet with her @b2bjt.
Posted by Sam Chapple on Thu, Jun 03, 2010
When it comes to choosing a web content management system to build your B2B website, what you get for free is a lot of work... especially if you try to integrate with a shopping cart or CRM.
When people evaluate a Content Management System for a B2B website, they often miss some very important requirements. They always seem to look for the one that’s ‘best’ and cheapest. Instead, they should base the choice on the intended audience and skill set of the site operators.
Probably the biggest mistake is going for a Content Management System that is perceived as ‘free’. This is a mistake because there is skill in running a website, and many ‘free’ CMS require a multitude of skills and time to develop, test and deploy. This does not end up being a one-time cost either.
Let’s look a little closer at the various options without getting lost in a particular CMS.
Open-Source
There are many ‘community’ based software projects like WordPress, Drupal, Mambo, Joomla!, Post Nuke and a whole lot more that are technically free. That is, the source code is
available to everyone and can be freely modified and distributed, but not sold.
These projects are excellent sources for development applications but are not some kind of out-of-the-box solution. Many times they end up in the hands of inexperienced but well meaning people who get completely lost in the complexity and the assumption of open-Source software that you know what you are doing, and if not, you will find the answer. That is, no technical support.
It’s true there are user forums and it’s true that open source is a great hobby. But if you are not willing to dedicate your precious time learning about the applications and getting under the hood, then ‘free’ is not ‘free’.
Closed-Source
Closed-source software applications are proprietary. That means the code behind the application is not available and is usually a trade secret. This is done for business reasons. It’s very difficult to develop software without money.
Companies license their closed-source applications for use only, not modification. Closed-source software companies like Oracle or Microsoft also offer paid support.
The big drawback to closed-source is its cost: It’s relatively expensive and requires additional resources (as does open-source) such as web servers and operating systems.
Hosted Services (SaaS)
Answering the call of the small business hosted services are application service providers (ASP) and the new breed, SaaS, or Software as a Service. This means you rent the application and not own it. This is an easy way for small businesses to get the tools that the big businesses already have. Probably the most well known is SalesForce, a Customer Relationship Management system that offers cradle-to-grave tracking of business leads and contacts.
A powerful inbound marketing platform called HubSpot incorporates blog, website and content management along with powerful analytics to track leads generated through a process called ‘closed loop marketing’. This is a process of gaining feedback in the form of email addresses, phone numbers and business addresses as lead follow-up, and data to track results.
There are also times when unscrupulous website designers sell an open-source application branded as their own. It’s important to understand and compare your options. It’s fairly easy to check on a brand by using a search engine like Google. You should be able to find a fair amount of feedback on a particular system you are interested in.
What you get for free is a lot of work. I know. I have a ‘free’ sail boat in my back yard. Free comes in many forms.
This article is by Sam Chapple, Ecommerce and Internet Marketing Manager at B2B Communications.